July 23, Blockchain venture venture studio ConsenSys has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Xiongan government in Beijing, according to South China Moring Post.

Blockchain developer ConsenSys has engaged as a consultant to provide software solutions as well as blockchain adoption advises to help the smart city development of Xiongan New Area.

Joseph Lubin, founder of ConsenSys and co-founder of ethereum stated that: “As one of our first major projects in the People’s Republic of China, we are excited to help define the many ‘use cases’ that could benefit from the trust infrastructure enabled by ethereum technology.”

It will be the first case for Xiongan to sign an MoU with a foreign company. Previously, the local government has cooperated with domestic tech giants including Tencent, Ant Financial and  Qihoo 360 for blockchain to seek technical support for blockchain adoption in areas from finance to house renting and cybersecurity.

ConsenSys is a New York based blockchain software technology company founded by Lubin in October 2014. The firm is focus on facilitating the empowerment of people and enabling decentralized governance through the development of software tools and incubating ethereum-based projects to help universal enterprises and governments for blockchain adoption.

Although Chinese authorities banned ICO and crackdown cryptocurrency exchanges in last September, they still hold a positive attitude towards blockchian technology. In a government document, blockchain has been underscored as a cutting-edge technology that need to be adopted in the construction and operation of Xiongan New Area.

According to the document, “the local authorities should adopt a forward-thinking approach to planning for the development and trials of blockchain , terahertz spectroscopy and cognitive computing.”

Thereafter, local government has launched a series of initiatives to build the new area into a blockchain hub in China. Xiongan has launched a blockchain network for small businesses to raise capital and a blockchain-powered house renting platform to provide more accurate information to users. This time, the MoU with ConsenSys is basically focus on the development of smart city, no further details has been disclosed as of press time.